The Mother
by Bob the Turtle
Summary: A mother waits for her husband to come home


**First one-shot based on the Enter the Metro trailers for Metro Last Light. Pretty good stuff those trailers. Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

She sang a lullaby as she rocked her baby back and forth in her arms-the child cooing and gurgling happily in her mother's arms. The mother smiled.

"Grow up smart and strong, child." She said. The baby merely gurgled a tiny laugh back at his mother. "Grow up smart and strong, just like your father."

She was at the stairwell of her apartment, waiting for her husband to come home. She was hoping to surprise him there with his new baby boy.

Her husband was a soldier and today he was suppose to go home on leave. He had missed their son's birth and had been distraught ever since. She remembers the letters sent by him asking about their son, always fretting about him and her health and advising that they ate well.

It was cute honestly. To see her dear Alexei be so excited in being a father and be so concerned for their wellbeing. It was why she married him. Life as the wife of a soldier wasn't going to be easy but if it was wanted an easy, dull life she could have married the accountant that her mother had picked out for her.

But no, she instead married Alexei-the love of her life. She wanted love and he knew Alexei would love her as much as she loved him. Afterall, what is the point in marrying some and vowing to live with them for the rest of your life to if there is no love in it? There will be highs and lows but life would at least not be dull and gray like her mother's.

The proof of their love that she cradled in her hands laughed. Tiny hands reaching out trying to touch his mother's face. She smiled and lowered her head, allowing her sons hands to touch her features.

She couldn't wait.

* * *

Three hours had passed and there was still no sign of her husband. She frowned and glanced briefly at her watch.

'_Odd, he should be here by now…maybe his leave got cancelled?'_

The thought made her feel dismayed. One of the lows it seems. Well, not to matter. She'd just have to wait till the next time Alexei had leave. If there was one thing she had learned after marrying a soldier is patience. Doesn't mean she is happy about it, however.

Sighing, she looked down at her baby boy who looked at her with curiosity in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Alex. It seems daddy won't be home for a while…" she whispered sadly. The boy didn't seem to like the sad look on his mother's face and began to tear up and cry.

"Oh, I know little one. I know you miss your father," She said. It's been to many days where she is alone with no one to talk to and too many nights where she is alone with no one else to hold. "I miss him too."

She began to rock her child in her arms back and forth. Slowly, she began to sing the boy a lullaby-soothing her child and herself.

It did the trick, the child no longer look as if he was about to bawl and shriek but rather began to look at his mother as if entranced by her mother's song.

She heard frantic steps coming down the stairs. Looking up she saw an old man pass by them seemingly in a hurry.

The old man stopped halfway down a flight of stairs before turning towards the mother. "Go to the Metro!" the man said before turning back and continuing down the steps and disappearing out of sight.

Go to the Metro? What was that all about? She huffed. _'Must have finally lost it or something.' _She thought.

Suddenly, a wail filled the air. Listening to the banshee calls she began to break into a cold sweat as she realize what they were.

Sirens. Air raid sirens.

"_Go to the Metro!"_ the deranged man's words echoed through her mind. She now understood what he meant. Quickly, she left her apartment stairwell and exited out of the building and into the streets.

Everywhere people were fleeing in their terrified droves. All of them were heading in the same direction: towards the Metro. She followed them. Her baby, surprisingly, remained quiet-blissfully ignorant and unaware of what was going on around them. She rounded a corner and saw a ragged looking man standing in the middle of the fleeing crowd holding a Bible up into the air. The lunatic screamed at the top of his lungs the same word over and over again as Moscow's air defense missiles are launched into the sky.

"Armageddon!"

Armageddon-the end of the World as they know it. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes as the panic and fear began to set in. She tried to wipe the tears away the best she could all the while continuing to run towards the Metro. _'Oh God, it's the End. It's truly the End!'_ she realizes. She thought about her husband who never got the chance nor ever will get the chance to see his son. She thought about her son and wondered what life he will live now if he even gets to live.

When she saw the large 'M' of the Metro station entrance she let out a sigh of relief only to gasp in shock as she saw the dense crowd of people in front of the entrance-all of them trying to get into the Underground. All of them begging and shouting at the soldiers guarding the doorway to be let in.

She looks down on to her son that was cradled in her arms. The child smiled and shrieked happily at his mother. The mother smiled back, trying to fight the growing despair in her heart. She pecked her beloved child's forehead and held him tightly against her chest.

She waded through the desperate crowd the best she could. Some people were fighting each other, pulling and shoving at the person in front of them so that they could enter the Metro first. She could see couples hugging and crying into each other's arms-briefly remind her of her own husband, Alexander.

'_He must be safe,' _she thought._ 'He must be! He works with the government-the military! He must be somewhere safe, right? Like a bunker or something. He has to be…'_

She tore her eyes away from the scene and blinked away the tears. She must be strong, she has to. For her child's sake and herself. She can't breakdown. Not now.

A few in the crowd saw her and her baby. The kind-hearted ones let her through, knowingly sacrificing themselves to give her and her child a chance to live. The more desperate ones tried to snatch her or her child, attempting to elicit some sympathy so that they could go through as well.

But the door was already closing. The crowd, seeing this, went into an absolute panic and tried to force their way into the station.

The guards struggled to close the door as the crowd desperately tried to keep them open. An officer then suddenly appears with a rifle slung over his back. Unslinging his rifle, he racked the bolt before aiming into the air and firing a shot.

The shot was deafening, and her ears ranged painfully from the sound. The crowd around the door was cowed however and began to back away from the door and the rifle-wielding officer. With the doorway cleared, the soldiers began to close the door. The crowd began to panic-screaming and begging for the men to keep the doors open just a second longer. Some even tried charging their way through only to back off at the last second when the officer aimed his rifle at at them.

As the doors began to close, her hopes sank and despair finally started to take root into her heart.

'_No. NO! Please, God. Not like this!'_

To be so close to salvation and yet have the door slammed on her face. They were going to die here among the screaming masses; her and her child. Unless…

She screamed at the officer, catching his attention. His stone-cold gaze met the young mother's pleading eyes. "P-please," she pleaded, "if you can't take me at least take my child."

The officer looks down and sees the child wrapped in blankets being cradled in her arms. His eyes momentarily softened, and he agreed to the mother's final request. He gingerly picked the child off from his mother's hands and cradled the bundled form in his arms.

She screams as her baby is taken from her arms, grief, sorrow, and despair finally taking over her heart. She screams her infant son's name. She screams it as she watched the Officer and her son descend down the escalator into the Metro. She screamed and cried as the door was finally closed shut. Her son will live but she will not. She will not live to see him grow nor will she by his side when he may need her most. He will never know his mother's face nor that of his father's.

She will die here, alone, among the screaming masses.

* * *

A lullaby. That was the only thing he remembered of his mother.

Ilya ascended up the steps of the ruined escalator, his Kalash in hand at the ready. He was alone. He didn't bring his crew with him as he felt that this was something he had to do alone.

His mother.

He does not know much about her except for that damn song that haunts him in his waking hours as well as in his dreams. When he was younger, he often asked his father-his adopted father as he has recently learned-of her mother. Back then, he never noticed the old officer's look of shame and guilt.

It was only a few days ago that his father finally told him about the circumstances of her death. That he had closed the doors of the station and at the same time sealed the deaths of not only his mother but of hundreds of other people. People whose scream still haunted the old man to this day. The loudest of which was his mother's, who screamed the name of her only child. His name.

"Ilya!"

He understood why he did that. Why he closed the doors and condemned them all to burn. There were only a few minutes before the nukes would hit and cleanse the world in atomic fire. It was impossible to save everyone and he had to close the doors lest it remained open and let fire and radiation through and kill all the people that were already saved.

He understood it all. He would have done the same if he was in his shoes. Hell, he even done something like that a few times before. The people he had sacrificed so that others would live. They were good men, but it was always preferable to sacrifice one man over a hundred. That didn't mean he liked it nor it meant he didn't punch the old man in the face for it.

Finally, he was at the top. The sky was dark, a storm was coming through soon. He has to make this quick.

The bones of the dead have long been eroded by time and scattered away by beasts that now walk the surface. This was the place however and that was all that mattered.

He opened his backpack and brought out some incense as well as an empty tin can. He lit the incense and put it into the can which he then places it in front of the Metro doorway.

Kneeling in front of the makeshift shrine, he offered a short prayer to the dead. To be honest, he has no idea if he is doing it right. He read somewhere a long time ago that this was how they did it in the days before the War…or at least one of the ways it was done. He wasn't exactly sure, but it probably didn't matter now.

Once finished he stood back up on to his feet. The storm was getting worse now. Walking back down the steps into the Metro he briefly stopped and turned towards the small shrine he made before descending further down the steps, back into the Metro below.

The lullaby never ceasing to play in his ears…


End file.
